Cricket in the USA - LA28 set to add defining chapter to a storied history
Though not the most popular sport in that part of the world, cricket shares a deep-rooted connection with the USA.
Cricket
The United States of America (USA) will be the backdrop of cricket’s much-anticipated return to the Olympics with the hugely popular bat-and-ball sport included in the Summer Games programme for Los Angeles 2028.
Cricket was a part of the 1900 Olympics in Paris but hasn’t featured on the Olympic programme since.
LA, and the USA as a whole, presents an interesting venue for cricket’s return to the fold.
Generally speaking, cricket isn’t even the most popular bat-and-ball sport in the US. That’d be baseball, cricket’s distant cousin and the national pastime of America. Basketball, American football, soccer (football), rugby, ice hockey and several others also outscore cricket in terms of popularity in America.
As a sport, cricket in America is mostly confined within the country’s South Asian and Caribbean diaspora.
Things, however, are evolving quickly and the success of the 2024 ICC Men’s T20 World Cup, co-hosted by the US with the West Indies, bears testimony to cricket’s growing appeal in the United States.
Though the USA’s association with cricket seems pretty recent, a deeper dive into the history of cricket in America presents a different story altogether. The two have a rich history together which dates back to the 1700s - long before the modern iteration of baseball was even created.
In essence, cricket was played in the USA even before it became the United States of America - the country we know today.
Cricket in America - first record
Like in most regions, cricket arrived on American shores with its British colonists who sailed across the Atlantic. The earliest reference of the sport being played in the American subcontinent dates back to 1709.
“About 10 o'clock Dr. Blair, and Major and Captain Harrison came to see us. After I had given them a glass of sack we played cricket,” one William Byrd, owner of the Westover plantation in Virginia, noted in a diary entry dated May 6, 1709. “I ate boiled beef for my dinner. Then we played at shooting with arrows...and went to cricket again till dark.”
In 1751, the New York Gazette and the Weekly Post Boy carried an account of a match between a London team and one from New York in Manhattan. It is the first reference of a public match of cricket in North America.
Benjamin Franklin, one of the founding fathers of the United States, played a pivotal role in helping formalise the rules of cricket in America back in 1754 after he brought back a copy of the 1744 Laws - cricket’s official rule book - from England.
There’s also anecdotal evidence that the troops under George Washington, Franklin’s fellow founding father and the first president of the United States, played a sport called wickets at Valley Forge in 1778.
It’s also documented that Abraham Lincoln, another famous American President, also attended a cricket match between Chicago and Milwaukee in 1849.
First international cricket match
Interestingly, the first-ever recorded international cricket match was between the US and Canada in 1844. The two-day match, extended to three days due to rain delay, was played at the St George's Cricket Club grounds in New York.
The Canadian cricket team won the match by 23 runs, albeit under controversial circumstances.
George Wheatcroft, Team USA’s No. 3 batter, failed to turn up on time to bat in the fourth innings and only arrived 20 minutes after his team’s last wicket fell. The hosts argued that he should go out to bat and the match should continue but the Canadians refused to entertain them.
Interestingly, David Winckworth, who was Canada’s top scorer in both innings of the match and scalped four wickets with his pace bowling in the first innings, also became the first dual international player in cricket.
He represented Canada in the two subsequent fixtures - one in Montreal and then in New York - in 1845. The Northerners won both matches.
Come 1846, Winckworth, who had shifted to Detroit, would go on to turn up for the USA in Harlem as USA finally won a match.
7th September 1859: England's 12 Champion Cricketers on board a ship at Liverpool bound for America. Back row (from left to right): Carpenter, Caflyn, Lockyer, Wisden (seated), Stephenson, G Parr, Grundy, Cesar, Hayward and Jackson. Seated at front: Diver (left) and John Lillywhite. (Photo by Rischgitz/Getty Images)
The English cricket team's 1859 tour of North America was the first-ever overseas cricket tour, marking a historic moment in the sport's international expansion. A group of 12 leading English players, including stars like George Parr and John Wisden, travelled to the United States and Canada for a series of exhibition matches. The tour was as much a cultural exchange as a sporting event, helping to introduce cricket to North American audiences.
Cricket was hugely popular in the USA in the mid-1800s before reaching its peak during the Civil War. The advent of baseball, which was much more compact than cricket matches that lasted over multiple days, also helped accelerate the waning of cricket’s popularity in the US.
J Barton King - one of cricket’s early superstars
Philadelphia-born John Barton King was one of the earliest superstars of cricket. A fast bowler, he averaged an astonishing 11.01 with the ball for the entire 1908 English cricket season while on tour with the Philadelphians. It stood as the record for almost half a century before Les Jackson of Derbyshire broke it in 1958.
USA was admitted to the International Cricket Council (ICC) as an associate member in 1965 and the sport began reclaiming some of its lost glory in the second half of the 20th century, particularly spurred by immigration from cricket-playing nations.
While co-hosting the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2024, Team USA’s performance in the tournament was a huge step forward for America. Another important milestone in the country’s cricketing history was the Cricket All-Stars Series in 2015.
The T20 exhibition series featured two star-studded teams led by retired cricket legends Sachin Tendulkar and Shane Warne. Three matches were played in New York City’s Citi Field, the Minute Maid Park in Houston, Texas and the iconic Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. All three venues, curiously, are iconic baseball stadiums. Warne's Warriors swept the series 3-0.
Another huge milestone in USA’s cricketing history transpired in 2023 with the formation of Major League Cricket (MLC), a franchise-based T20 cricket league in the mold of the popular Indian Premier League (IPL). Come LA Olympics 2028, white-ball cricket will make an indelible mark with top nations vying for an Olympic medal.